Page 1 of My Lord Rogue
CHAPTER ONE
April 1824
London, England
The afternoon light filtered through the gauzy curtains of Theodosia, Lady Pattishall’s drawing room, casting elongated shadows across the Persian carpet. She sat in perfect stillness, the only movement the slight rise and fall of her chest beneath the gray silk of her mourning gown. The house around her felt empty, cavernous in its silence—a fitting complement to the hollow space that had resided within her chest for the past year. Outside, London bustled with the early arrivals for the Season, but within these walls, time had slowed to the pace of her grief.
The mantel clock ticked with methodical precision, marking another hour of another day without him. She had grown accustomed to the solitude, had wrapped it around herself like a shawl against the cold intrusions of her friends, who expected her to simply move forward after the first months of mourning passed. She should have married again by now, they said.Fifteen months had passed. She needed to secure her future, although Charles had done that before they married. She could live a comfortable existence on her own with what he’d set aside for her.
Her gaze drifted to the silver tray that had been discreetly placed on the side table during her morning tea. Amidst the usual correspondence—invitations she routinely declined, condolences that still arrived from distant acquaintances—lay an envelope with a distinctive seal, a fox rampant, the crest of the St. Ervan family.
Theo’s fingers trembled slightly as she reached for it. Verity, Lady St. Ervan, had been her closest confidante since her first Season in London. Unlike Theo’s other friends, who had gradually withdrawn in the face of her persistent mourning, Verity remained steadfast, though increasingly determined in her efforts to draw Theo back into society.
Verity had lost her first husband some years ago, but now was happily married to the Earl of St. Ervan. She understood Theo’s pain and the resolution to stay true to her beloved’s memory, but she insisted Theo might also find happiness with another man, just as she had.
Theo couldn’t bear the idea.
She broke the seal with her silver letter opener and extracted several sheets of paper covered in Verity’s distinctive, flowing handwriting.
Her eyes moved across the page, absorbing her friend’s characteristic enthusiasm. A house party at their country estate. Two weeks of “restorative country air” and “select company.” Phrases like “eligible gentlemen” and “perfect opportunity to shed your widow’s weeds” leaped from the page with alarming clarity.
Theo’s grip tightened on the paper. Her breath caught. The words blurred before her eyes as her vision clouded.
“No,” she whispered to the empty room. Her free hand moved unconsciously to the gold locket that hung at her throat—a small oval containing Charles’s miniature, painted in the first year of their marriage. The metal felt warm against her skin.
She closed her eyes, and there he was—Charles’s smile, the slight dimple in his left cheek, the way his eyes crinkled at the corners when he laughed. The memories crashed over her like waves. His hands cupping her face on their wedding night, his voice rough with emotion as he pledged himself to her. The scent of his skin, bay rum and something indefinably his own. The weight of his arm across her waist as they slept.
“I cannot,” she murmured, opening her eyes to banish the ghosts. “I cannot bear it.”
But even as the words left her lips, she recognized the whisper of obligation beneath them. Verity had been patient. More than patient. While other friends had drifted away, uncomfortable with the depth of her grief, Verity had remained constant, writing weekly, visiting when she was in Town, never pushing too hard but never entirely relenting either.
The letter continued with practical details—the date, two weeks hence, the expected guests, “only our dearest friends, I promise,” the assurance that Theo would have her usual blue room overlooking the rose garden. Verity knew her too well and had anticipated her objections and smoothed them away before Theo could even voice them.
A knot formed in her throat as she read the last paragraph. “It has been fifteen months, my dearest friend. Charles would not wish you to live like this, shuttered away from all joy. Come to me. Let me help you find your way back to yourself.”
Theo folded the letter with precise movements, her fingertips lingering on the creases as if they might offer some solution, some escape. The afternoon light had shifted, casting longshadows across the room. Soon the servants would come to light the lamp, to draw the curtains against the encroaching evening.
She stood, the letter clutched in her hand, and crossed to the window. The street below teemed with life. Carriages rolled past, a flower seller stood on the corner with her basket of early blooms. The world continued its relentless forward march while she remained frozen in amber, preserved in grief.
Perhaps Verity was right. Perhaps it was time to at least attempt a step forward. Not to forget, never that, but to learn how to carry her memories differently, to make room for… if not happiness, then at least something other than this consuming solitude.
The weight of the invitation seemed to grow heavier in her hand as the decision crystallized. She would go, if only to silence Verity’s well-intentioned concern. But she would make it clear to Verity and to any “eligible gentlemen” who might be paraded before her that her heart remained buried with Charles. That was nonnegotiable.
Theo turned from the window, calculating what preparations would be necessary for a fortnight in company after so long alone. The first stirrings of anxiety fluttered in her chest, but beneath them lay something else, a sensation so unfamiliar that it took her a moment to recognize it.
It was possibility, as fragile and tentative as the first green shoot breaking through winter soil.
A short time later,Theo tugged at the bellpull beside her dressing table, summoning her maid, Annie, from the servants’ quarters below. She untied the ribbon around her waist as she prepared to change into her more formal gown. It was probablysilly of her, but she’d continued the ritual of dressing as though she expected Charles to arrive home after his day in the House of Lords to join her for supper.
The soft click of the door announced Annie’s arrival. The lady’s maid slipped into the room with the quiet efficiency that had made her indispensable over the years. Annie moved immediately to assist with the back fastenings of the gray gown. “My lady, will you be dining in your room this evening?”
“No. I believe I shall brave the dining room tonight. I’ve received an invitation from Lady St. Ervan. A house party in a fortnight.”
The servant’s fingers paused momentarily before resuming their work. “That would be a change, my lady.”
The gown loosened, and Theo stepped out of it, standing in her chemise and stays as Annie carefully laid the gown across the chaise. There was a comforting rhythm to their evening ritual. Annie had come with her from her father’s house when she married Charles, and in the past year, the maid’s presence had become an anchor in Theo’s unmoored existence.
Theo sought the words to express how she felt. “Lady St. Ervan means well, but I cannot bear an evening of eligible bachelors paraded before me like prize cattle.”